Rabu, 19 Oktober 2016

Is Your Youth Group Too Much Fun?

Is Your Youth Group Too Much Fun?

Are fun and spiritual depth at odds?
It can feel that way sometimes. It can be perceived that we are
either deep or fun, but not both. And I don’t want that to be our
reputation. No way.
I talked about this on the YM Answers podcast a
while back. I hope you’ll check it out! But until you’ve got a minute
for that, here’s a bit of my journey regarding the question and also a
solution that worked for us in our youth ministry.Is your youth group too much fun?
Never.
Your youth group can never be too much fun.
I repeat, your youth group can never be too much fun.
At the same time, your youth group can never be too intentional about growing closer to God and each other.
I realize this puts us all in a bit of a situation—but it’s nothing a little creativity and prayer can’t fix.
A few years ago I decided to switch up the order of things in our
youth ministry because the model I was following wasn’t giving me the
results I wanted.
I attended a seminar at a Youth Specialties conference years ago
about how to lead worship. Chris Tomlin was presenting. He knows a
little bit about it. No, I don’t sing or even pretend to sing. I whisper
sing (because it’s better for humanity). But, I am intuitively drawn to
learning about everything that doesn’t apply to my current situation.
I’m not sure where this came from or why. But I love to learn about
other people’s challenges and areas of expertise. I feel like it gets me
out of all sorts of mind traps. I will never be the person in the room
who is stuck. If I have a problem, I’ll figure out what a rocket
engineer would do, learn the rubric behind their reasoning, apply it to
my current situation, then see what happens. Strangely, it’s worked for
me. Back to Chris.
The bottom line—the lesson I learned in the workshop in Charlotte North Carolina that year was this:“You’ve got to let a song breathe.”
That means, if something is working while you’re leading, then you
should be flexible enough to stay there for longer or to move on sooner.
This meant that having a youth program where we do what we normally do was too rigid.Typical Youth Group Environment
• Play Walk-In Music/Organized Chaos (10 minutes)
• Say Hello (2 minutes)
• Play a fun icebreaker game (5 minutes)
• Play an embarrassing upfront game (5 minutes)
• Sing one-to-three songs, depending on how squirrely the room is (10 minutes)
• Talk and Teach (15-25 minutes)
• Sing another song maybe (3 minutes)
• Pray (1 minute or 10 depending, on how everyone’s been acting the last 45 minutes)
• Attend small groups on another day of the week
I saw a few things happening.

1. Moments didn’t have time to breathe. When
kids felt God’s Spirit, or needed more time to respond, it was already
time to leave. I had kids who wanted more time to pray.
2. We dipped into everything for a few minutes but didn’t dig into anything for longer more impacting amounts of time.
3. Three minutes of fun isn’t enough.
4. Three minutes of prayer isn’t enough.
5. Modeling teaching and singing as the only ways to practice
spirituality isn’t enough. Kids need more. They’re wired to feel,
experience and express. I wasn’t seeing enough spaces to do that.
So, I applied the rule of worship to our youth ministry. (Thank you Chris Tomlin.)
We asked:
How do we give significant moments a chance to breathe when they need
to breathe? How do I customize our youth ministry in a way that makes
it malleable for us as leaders? When we see that something is needed
more, how do we change the pattern?
I decided to try a rotation approach that would give us a better feel
for whole youth ministry—where celebration, compassion, community are
working together and being emphasized in greater more impacting moments.
Here’s a sample of what our team implemented:
Wednesday nights would have a program, adjusted to make more time at
the back end, with a rotating emphasis each week. We would still do the
program like you’ve read above but we might shrink the game to 1 or 2
minutes if we’re planning on playing games after for 30. We might add
songs and cut talk time. We might make the message longer or shorter if
small groups need extra time. I cut my talk down to 10-15 minutes and
began relying on our small group leaders to cultivate community and to
become spiritual guides and fun captains for the kids in their circle.
Shortened Youth Min Program (45-60 minutes)
Rotation Program (30-45 minutes)
• Week 1 – Small Groups
• Week 2 – Games (30 minutes of insanity)
• Week 3 – Small Groups
• Week 4 – Spiritual Formation or Prayer Spaces
• Week 5 – Small Groups
For us, we’d physically transition to another room or space. But if
you’ve only got one room to work with, I could still see this working
for you with some help and creativity from your leaders.
Everything we did was led, organized and fueled by our small group
leaders. This is how we let things breathe. Some weeks we’d change it up
and decide to do another week of small groups. Some months we’d
establish two fun nights instead of having just one. We’d circle up as
leaders and we’d pray. We’d ask, what makes sense? When was the last
time they really connected with God in silence or in creativity? The
school year is unpredictable. Life is unpredictable. Think about the
weeks when a teenager dies and your entire group is mourning. It gave us
an ability to respond and adjust in the moment. It normalized
flexibility.
It means being in the moment of your ministry, listening and not being afraid of trying something new.
How are things working for you? Is there space for things to breathe? Are you having fun? Are you growing deep.
All of it is possible.This article originally appeared here.